"All of our little society--well, the nine of us-- and the role, hmm." He considers. "Debatable, from a literary point; but we're introduced in the course of Marius Pontmercy's tale--he features quite a lot, it could half be a memoir of his college years, but we're a rather smaller bit of the tale. We're part of his political education; and then there's the barricade, our last one-- or something close enough to what it was for both of us." Because they did have a slightly different experience, there.

" Bossuet assures me it's quite accurate; and the overall story is more sympathetic to us than I'd have expected, from what he was writing when we left for our current lodgings. Still- it is very much Hugo. There's a rather lengthy defense of Louis-Philippe, a lot of agonizing over the course of history.."

He waves a hand-- so on, so on. " He's still the moderate, and can't seem to praise the Republic without trying to shield the throne."